Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

90 Years of Eddie Bauer History On Display in Bellevue

If you look closely at the front fenders, you may see Eddie Bauer Limited Edition tags. It’s a model that upgraded to treatments like metallic paint, extra chrome, and leather on the interior. Most of us know that Eddie Bauer outfitted climbers instead of cars; around these parts, the Eddie Bauer brand carries some hometown pride because of the products designed by the legendary local. The quality of his goods could easily withstand the rigors of the Northwest, and his patents made life safer and more pleasurable for everyone outdoors. Eddie Bauer’s original products were created out of necessity rather than style. These great accomplishments came straight from the heart of a man with big ideas, the ability to connect products with people, and almost no formal education.

And those accomplishments are extensive.

Photo courtesy of Eddie Bauer Archives

A few examples of those innovations and firsts include:

– Created one of the earliest influential shuttlecocks for badminton used in competitive tournaments, in the 1920s
– Brought the first Black Labrador to Washington, in 1930
– Created the first patented down jacket, 1936
– Created the first down flight suit, 1942
– Created the first mountaineering parka, 1953

He didn’t slow down after retiring in 1968 and selling the company he founded; in the early 1970s he patented even more fishing equipment and eventually won awards for breeding Black Labs at Wanapum Kennels. He was known for his work ethic, outgoing nature, speed, and personal intensity. A resident of the Eastside as early as 1903, Eddie lived on his father’s dairy farm at Yarrow Bay. Starting in 1942, Eddie and wife Stine lived in Redmond and then Bellevue until their deaths in 1986, mere weeks apart from each other.

2010 marks the 90th Anniversary of the Eddie Bauer brand. In celebration of this event, the Bellevue headquarters recently opened a museum at their offices in Lincoln Square. There is more to this archive than simply displaying the company’s accomplishments; CEO Neil Fiske tells all designers to check out and research the historic products at the beginning of each design season – as the first step in the design process. This does not come necessarily from a desire to create a retro product, but rather to get a solid understanding about the spirit of the company. The idea is to capture what made Eddie Bauer great in the past, and build on that greatness to make products for the future.

Colin Berg – Eddie Bauer’s archivist – recently shared the archive room with me on a guided tour. For many years the items had been boxed up in storage, but since 2010 is the company’s 90th anniversary there was a desire to look at where the company came from by setting up a place where the products could be viewed by employees. The archives are also available for public viewing by appointment. Establishing an interactive archive for visitors was the perfect choice to present these historic items. The room, set up near the 5th-floor reception area, is built mostly in rustic wood and lit warmly. It is not intended to be a hermetically-sealed archive, Berg says, but it is kept at a consistent temperature at all times. They use gloves and great care when handling the products anyway, since many of them are the last remaining examples in the world. The room lays out the items in a chronological horseshoe pattern, starting with the 1920s on the left side and ending with the present day on the right. Visitors are greeted by a typewriter holding vintage Eddie Bauer letterhead, and a wall graphic of The Man himself on a fishing trip in BC.

To the left of the typewriter are cases that hold Shooting awards, won by company teams in the 1970s, and vintage Eddie Bauer fishing lures.

With so many interesting items in the museum, it was hard to whittle down to a set batch to present here. My entire photo collection from the visit is available in a slide show, at the bottom of this post. Below I’ve highlighted a number of the products that really caught my attention; the best place to start is with possibly the most pivotal piece in the collection.

The Story of The Skyliner

Next to the tackle is the display holding one of the original “Skyliner” jackets, which caused a sensation in its day for being warm and light at the same time. Berg states this jacket is considered to be “the beginning of the Eddie Bauer brand.” Like other products of his making, Eddie Bauer created the Skyliner from necessity in 1936 after a mountain hike gone wrong. He and another hiker were dressed in the common wool clothing of the day, but warm weather forced them to strip off the top layer. The hike was a sweaty endeavor. Suddenly a cold snap hit; when they tried to redress in the wool outer layers they found their clothes were covered in ice. His partner had gotten far enough ahead that – when he realized hypothermia was coming on – Eddie was forced to pull out a revolver and shoot two rounds into the air to summon his friend back.

Those shots saved Eddie Bauer’s life.

Bauer almost died on the mountain, but was rescued and evacuated just in time to be treated. Knowing that goose down feathers had been used in the Russian Army for warmth and lightness, he later set out to create the first patented down jacket in the US. Eddie showed a prototype to a well-known Seattle climber, who was blown away by the lightweight design. There was nothing like it, and the Skyliner eventually revolutionized cold-weather climbing gear. Because of its historical significance, the jacket is being rereleased soon with the same look – and made from modern materials.

WWII Flight Suit

In 1942, Army Air Force fliers in Alaska were wearing the upper section of the Eddie Bauer cold weather suit, because its performance beat anything the Army was offering at the time. When command caught wind of this, they contacted Eddie and asked him to design a “cold weather buoyancy flight suit.” The two main criteria were that a flier had to remain warm while sitting still for up to three hours in -70°F, and that the garment also keep a flier plus 25 pounds of gear afloat in water for up to 24 hours – in case the plane got shot down. Berg stated that the down-insulated B-9 Parka and A-8 Flight Pants “passed every test, and saved many lives.”

Photo courtesy of Eddie Bauer Archives

Because the Bauer name was on the suit label, veterans started writing to Eddie Bauer after the war to ask how they could buy more of the rugged products. A marketing coup if there ever was one.

The King of Outdoors
In the 1920s a magazine followed Eddie and friends on some of their outdoor activities, and took photos for a layout. Knowing this could be marketing opportunity, Eddie had the “Bauer’s Sport Shop” logo affixed to the team’s outerwear. The museum is filled with examples of Eddie using every angle to a marketing advantage; this one to me is one of the most notable because of the bold design.

A Shirt With a Secret

The plaid shirt above isn’t just a plaid shirt.

In the colorful design of this seemingly standard apparel, there is tradition and history crossed in the unique patterns of Scottish tartans. “The product designer who designed this in 2008 is Scottish himself,” Berg explained, “and had a personal connection with the tartan histories.” He went on to say that the designer’s goal with this shirt was to tell the Eddie Bauer story. So two striping patterns were used to make up the plaid, with the first one being called the Field and Stream Stripe; it employed navy, orange, tan, and green – representing the colors of the Northwest and also the color pallets that Eddie sold in the early catalogs. The other stripe was called the Expedition Stripe – using red, blue, and yellow – and was adapted from the 1963 photo of Jim Whittaker, the first American to summit the 29,000-foot Mt. Everest. Eddie Bauer outfitted that historic expedition to the top of the world’s tallest mountain. If you look closely at the colors in the Expedition Stripe, you’ll see that they match the red parka, the blue climbing pants, and the yellow mukluks in the photo below. In fact, the width of these three stripes is the same ratio as Whittaker’s climbing gear:

Much has been written about the 1963 expedition to the top of Mt Everest. One story I hadn’t read, however, was that the team was actually split into smaller groups, each with the goal of summiting the mountain from a different direction. One group of climbers came up a very rugged route from the opposite side of the mountain; they summited the peak around 6:30pm, just as night began to fall. The rule of thumb on Everest is that climbers should summit the mountain by 1:00pm, in order to have enough time to get back to camp safely. While they were standing at the top of the world, the climbers were five and one-half hours late getting there and already at a disadvantage. They couldn’t go down the way them came because of the route’s difficulty, so they followed the boot tracks of a team that preceded them. Darkness made the descent difficult, and eventually their air tanks also ran out of oxygen – a vital component above 14,000 feet. After that, each step required about 8 breaths to complete. Disoriented in the dark from lack of air, the team thought they were a lot farther along than they actually were. Eventually they met up with the preceding team and determined that conditions would not allow them to continue that day. They decided to bivouac – meaning to set up camp – for the night at 25,000 feet. They had none of their camp equipment and had to do with what they brought.

All they had to protect them from the elements were their Eddie Bauer parkas and pants.

It became the highest bivouac in history to date. Mountaineering stories like this have been entwined for decades with the Eddie Bauer brand. I’ll admit to being a novice in the realm of mountain climbing, and I have tremendous respect for the people and lore of these expeditions. What I found amazing during the archive visit was just how much history could be referenced by a simple parka. The next one is a prime example of both history and human skill.

The Belay

This is one of the eight original Kara Koram parkas developed in 1953 for the first ascent of K2. the world’s second highest mountain. “Even though they did not succeed in reaching the summit,” Berg said, “it became one of the most famous American mountaineering expeditions in history because of the heroism they exhibited.” This particular parka was owned by Pete Schoening, a well-respected and highly-accomplished Seattle climber, who was well known in mountaineering circles for what is simply called “The Belay.”

While attempting to summit K2 in 1953, the climbing team got pinned down by a blizzard for several days at 25,000 feet. One of those climbers – Art Gilkey – developed blood clots in the legs and could no longer walk. So the team tried to evacuate him off the mountain by using a technique called Belaying, which lowered Gilkey down a rope while he was wrapped in a sleeping bag and tent for warmth. Schoening was on point, with his ice axe hooked on a rock. Suddenly one climber slipped and fell, ultimately pulling his rope mate off the mountain. Their rope inadvertently tangled with three other climbers and then tangled Schoening’s rope. In the end Schoening’s ice axe held six men hanging off the mountain, until the five able-bodied climbers could scramble back to safety. Gilkey somehow disappeared during the fray; there is some speculation that he cut himself loose of the tangle in order to give his climbing mates a better chance to survive.

His remains were found at the base of K2 in 1993.

1958 Kara Koram Parka in The Kara Koram

The name Kara Koram actually refers to a very rugged ribbon of mountains in Central Asia; the best known peak there is K2 (the “K” is for “Karakoram”). The picture above shows the Eddie Bauer Kara Koram parka that Pete Schoening used to climb the 26,508-foot high Gasherbrum I in 1958, the 11th highest peak in the world; Gasherbrum I is also known as “K5.” The eight-man team’s ascent was the first time the mountain had been summited ever. Schoening also used this parka in 1960 to climb Alaska’s Mt. McKinley, the highest peak in North America. Only one change was made to climb McKinley; he added the wolverine fur around the edge of the hood.

Eddie Bauer Skis

Both Eddie and Stine Bauer were avid skiers, and spent a lot of time at Snoqualmie Pass on the slopes. The skis above are from a line that Bauer imported straight from Norway, before having the company name emblazoned on the tips.

Arctic Expedition Jacket

“This piece up here is an interesting one,” Berg said pointing to the parka seen above. “This is from 1978. That year the company started a series of expeditions in the North Arctic. Not only did we outfit the expeditions but we sponsored them.” Specifically the goal was to field test shell fabrics and insulation materials – like goose down, wool and synthetic materials. The 1978 parka has three different liners that are held in by Velcro.

This is one of the original air bottles from the 1963 Mt. Everest climb, found in 2009 when Eddie Bauer launched the First Ascent sub brand by returning to the world’s tallest mountain. The bottle is date-stamped 1962.

Since returning to and summiting Everest in 2009, the professional climbers working with First Ascent have gone on to tackle some of the highest and toughest summits in the world, including the 22,000-foot Aconcagua in The Andes, the highest mountain in The Americas, and a re-summit of Everest this year. Read all about their exploits at the First Ascent Blog.

Store Sign | Photo courtesy of Eddie Bauer Archives

I smiled the other day when I saw a blue “Eddie Bauer” Ford Expedition in – of all places – an Overlake fast-food parking lot. It seemed ironic, given that Eddie Bauer products have been made to get us all outdoors, rather than inside to order a combo meal. In a way this unusual scene merely magnifies the impact this brand wielded on our culture. The brand can be seen everywhere, even in the wilds of suburbia. From humble beginnings in the back of a store in downtown Seattle, the Eddie Bauer brand has excelled and endured for nine decades. It’s nice to know that products from the past are being shared with us in the present, as the company designs for the future.

That’s an accomplishment in its own right.

Guided tours of the archive are available to the public by appointment. If you would like to arrange one, contact Colin Berg at the Eddie Bauer headquarters.

If you would like to see the entire photo shoot from that visit, watch the slideshow embedded below. If you don’t see it, click HERE to view it directly at Flickr.

Next Week: Another trip into Bellevue’s past through the viewfinder of a camera. Until then, enjoy the view!

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..